Reading Wednesday
Aug. 5th, 2020 08:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
troisoiseauxRecently read
Went on an Agatha Christie binge, with The Pale Horse (1961), The Moving Finger (1942), and Towards Zero (1944). Interestingly, despite the very different premises and the almost 20-year gap between their publishing dates, I caught a number of similarities between The Pale Horse and the The Moving Finger.
The most obvious connection was that a Rev. and Mrs. Dane Calthrop showed up in both novels. In both cases, the vicar's personality boiled down to a penchant for overlong Latin quotations; the Mrs. Dane Calthrops of The Pale Horse and The Moving Finger differed slightly in terms of characterization (one gave "sound but unorthodox advice", and the other made a point to never give any advice at all) but served a similar narrative purpose.
Both novels also touch on the topic of the "village witch" - actually a grumpy old woman who cultivated a Reputation so people would leave her alone but also send her free stuff, to get on her good side - supposedly able to "ill-wish" someone so they "waste away and die of natural causes." This was proposed hypothetically in The Moving Finger - actually a passing argument as to why the so-called village witch in question wouldn't have committed the murder(s) - but it was a major focus of the plot in The Pale Horse.
Finally - and this is admittedly a more tenuous connection, but given the other similarities it stuck out - both novels feature a character with similar physical descriptions. The part that stuck out to me was the "prominent Adam's apple," because that seems like such a weirdly specific thing to describe?
The Pale Horse also contained a passing reference to one of Christie's Tommy & Tuppence novels; a character mentions having encountered an elderly woman in a nursing home who spoke, apparently senilely, about a child buried behind a fireplace, which is of course what sets off the Beresfords' investigation-of-the-book in By the Pricking of My Thumbs. So that's an interesting data point for my Agatha Christie Extended Universe theory! Ariadne Oliver and Tommy and Tuppence Beresford apparently exist in the same 'verse, and since Ariadne Oliver and Hercule Poirot definitely exist in the same 'verse, I guess the Beresfords and Poirot also exist in the same universe? (Of course, maybe T&T don't exist in this universe and the mystery of the child behind the fireplace never gets solved. :/)
Read Intimations, a new, very short, very good collection of essays by Zadie Smith, reflecting on the hell year that is 2020. The proceeds are donated to the Equal Justice Initiative and the COVID-19 Emergency Relief Fund for New York— it's $4.99 for an e-book and I think it's $10 for a physical copy?
Finished The Magician's Land by Lev Grossman. I have basically no thoughts on it whatsoever, but the ending was cuckoo bananas: Quentin stops Fillory's apocalypse by turning into a dragon, killing its twin gods, and temporarily becoming a god himself, only to give up his godly powers, because Quentin Gives Up is pretty much the theme of this series. I'm pretty sure this still wouldn't have made any sense whatsoever even if I had actually read the last few chapters rather than skimming them because I'd lost interest.
Also, I don't blame Alice for being mad that Quentin "rescued" her from being a niffin. Like, she seemed to be enjoying her afterlife as a disembodied magical energy spirit that can apparently go anywhere - down to the crust of the earth, up past the known reaches of space, through mirrors - so to then be spontaneously re-embodied by her whiney ex, who saw her as more of an ideal than a person when she was alive and only got more "she was the only one who understood me!!" about her in the seven years since she died? I'd be pissed off, too!
...okay, I guess I had two (2) thoughts.
Currently reading
Given my recent Arthurian kick, I'm re-reading The Once & Future King by T.H. White.
Went on an Agatha Christie binge, with The Pale Horse (1961), The Moving Finger (1942), and Towards Zero (1944). Interestingly, despite the very different premises and the almost 20-year gap between their publishing dates, I caught a number of similarities between The Pale Horse and the The Moving Finger.
The most obvious connection was that a Rev. and Mrs. Dane Calthrop showed up in both novels. In both cases, the vicar's personality boiled down to a penchant for overlong Latin quotations; the Mrs. Dane Calthrops of The Pale Horse and The Moving Finger differed slightly in terms of characterization (one gave "sound but unorthodox advice", and the other made a point to never give any advice at all) but served a similar narrative purpose.
Both novels also touch on the topic of the "village witch" - actually a grumpy old woman who cultivated a Reputation so people would leave her alone but also send her free stuff, to get on her good side - supposedly able to "ill-wish" someone so they "waste away and die of natural causes." This was proposed hypothetically in The Moving Finger - actually a passing argument as to why the so-called village witch in question wouldn't have committed the murder(s) - but it was a major focus of the plot in The Pale Horse.
Finally - and this is admittedly a more tenuous connection, but given the other similarities it stuck out - both novels feature a character with similar physical descriptions. The part that stuck out to me was the "prominent Adam's apple," because that seems like such a weirdly specific thing to describe?
The Pale Horse also contained a passing reference to one of Christie's Tommy & Tuppence novels; a character mentions having encountered an elderly woman in a nursing home who spoke, apparently senilely, about a child buried behind a fireplace, which is of course what sets off the Beresfords' investigation-of-the-book in By the Pricking of My Thumbs. So that's an interesting data point for my Agatha Christie Extended Universe theory! Ariadne Oliver and Tommy and Tuppence Beresford apparently exist in the same 'verse, and since Ariadne Oliver and Hercule Poirot definitely exist in the same 'verse, I guess the Beresfords and Poirot also exist in the same universe? (Of course, maybe T&T don't exist in this universe and the mystery of the child behind the fireplace never gets solved. :/)
Read Intimations, a new, very short, very good collection of essays by Zadie Smith, reflecting on the hell year that is 2020. The proceeds are donated to the Equal Justice Initiative and the COVID-19 Emergency Relief Fund for New York— it's $4.99 for an e-book and I think it's $10 for a physical copy?
Finished The Magician's Land by Lev Grossman. I have basically no thoughts on it whatsoever, but the ending was cuckoo bananas: Quentin stops Fillory's apocalypse by turning into a dragon, killing its twin gods, and temporarily becoming a god himself, only to give up his godly powers, because Quentin Gives Up is pretty much the theme of this series. I'm pretty sure this still wouldn't have made any sense whatsoever even if I had actually read the last few chapters rather than skimming them because I'd lost interest.
Also, I don't blame Alice for being mad that Quentin "rescued" her from being a niffin. Like, she seemed to be enjoying her afterlife as a disembodied magical energy spirit that can apparently go anywhere - down to the crust of the earth, up past the known reaches of space, through mirrors - so to then be spontaneously re-embodied by her whiney ex, who saw her as more of an ideal than a person when she was alive and only got more "she was the only one who understood me!!" about her in the seven years since she died? I'd be pissed off, too!
...okay, I guess I had two (2) thoughts.
Currently reading
Given my recent Arthurian kick, I'm re-reading The Once & Future King by T.H. White.
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Date: 2020-08-06 04:01 pm (UTC)